Our Day of Infamy

What follows is an account of what I was doing on this day fourteen years ago. It is predominantly a re-post from a few years ago but this day will always hold more significance for me because I spent the last two 11 Septembers in Afghanistan. I didn't go there because of today, but if it hadn't been for this day I wouldn't have been there. On this day most of us remember where we were when we still had a World Trade Center in New York, New York (the town so nice, they named it twice).

For my part, I was going in to work late because I had something to deliver for work in downtown Birmingham. I was going to give my brother-in-law a ride to his condo in Dirt Pile (known to everyone besides he and I as a little burg named Mountain Brook). I stopped at my normal gas station, a Jet Station. You cannot make up the good stuff.

When I went in to pay the clerk told me that an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center. Now this did not concern me one little bit. NOT IN THE LEAST! Because I am a Civil Engineer, at the time I was still in school, in fact, I was taking my Structural Steel class. But I wasn't worried because I know that skyscrapers are designed to withstand an airline collision. Of course, that design is predicated on the fact that the pilot realizes he's headed for a building and is attempting to avoid it. The Empire State Building was hit by a B-25 in 1945. It is, to my knowledge, the highest fire that has ever been successfully put out. But when the pilot realized a collision was unavoidable he was still trying to avoid it.

Getting back into the truck we continued on and heard that the second tower was hit. Immediately I realized, the first plane wasn't trying to miss and we were in for a bad day. Modern sky scrapers are not made to hold the weight of the floors above them. The floors are designed to hold up the weight of the floor, the weight is then transferred down. It is a fascinating concept that is a part of the reason I never wanted to be a structural engineer, however, no engineer can ever look at a structure without thinking load transfer ever.

As the radio told us the second tower was hit I turned to my brother-in-law and said, "Johnny, some country just used to exist." I was as positive of that then as I am now.

Slippery Slope

Recently my oldest child "found" my blog. She stumbled upon it because in trying to get her to share some of her writing with me she commented that she had never seen any of my writings. Since I started this blog to write and set it up (I thought) to make it so that any subscribers could get my novella to read, it was logical that I would share this with her. Through that process I found a few items of interest.

First off, I found out that despite the fact I had fixed it previously, my subscription link STILL didn't work right. I think that I fixed that now, though I need someone to subscribe and try it out because clearly I'm not the one to test it.

The second thing I learned was that while blogs about my middle daughter quite The Frequently posted type, my eldest was left out in the cold. More often I referred to "all my kids" instead of her alone. She is talented in her own right: musically, dramatically, and she's pretty quick with a literary quip like her old man, too. I haven't completely read anything she's written yet because after she read my novella she told me it was good and comparatively hers isn't so she doesn't want to share her work with me.

As always, getting me pondering a subject becomes a slippery slope that delves into the heart of matters that seem completely unrelated unless you are inside my head. It is rare, but I have had folks tell me they would love to be inside my head even when I tell them there are times I wish I wasn't. However, as with most posts here, my goal is to connect the dots to reveal rather than a simple stream of consciousness. M's offhanded comments began a digression.

For those that know I apologize for re-telling, but my novella is an allegory. The subject of the allegory is extremely clear from the start, but the heavy symbolism and metaphors are not all so cut and dried. In fact, many no one would get unless they were inside my head. For instance, the Bradford Arms is named for the preacher who baptised me and is a modification of a line I heard from an episode of Sanford and Son. Why I chose Redd Fox as a source can only be described in stream of consciousness so we'll let that lay. Even the reason I picked the name of one of my lead characters has a hidden meaning but it would be disingenuous to describe why I selected his name. Said name being one that is never fully revealed in the course of the story for yet another streaming reason.

In finishing the work I was glad to have finished it. Revising it was fun--at first. Once I had it "polished" and shared it with someone I realized how unpolished it was. Three editorial revisions later than I thought and then it was done (Edee would get the reason for this sentence). Now, I was proud of the work. I added a few more formatting flourishes and thought I was King of the Allegory. Then I got into a class studying Pilgrim's Progress. Having read the Pilgrim's Regress I thought I was prepared. I learned two things: 1. C.S. Lewis did a great job allegorizing John Bunyan's allegory, and 2. My own allegory was not even a shadow of literature compared to either of those works.

After a few weeks of contemplation I realized my error. While I had polished, Bunyan had nothing but time on his hands in jail to put layers of polish onto his work. Recalling the delight as my work flowed through me to the keyboard I wondered in awe at what it would have been like with quill and ink to pen such a work. The pages and pages of rewrites he must have undergone. Comparing our two works was like reviewing a first grader's Mother's Day card to a work in the Louvre and I quit doing it.

Back in July of 2011 our preacher had gone on a trip and had a stand-in who preached about a passage from John 6:26-40. The crowd that was following Jesus didn't want him, they came for the signs. They sought Jesus as the ends not the means. My oldest child (Remember Alice? This is a song about Alice), is looking for her use as an ends not as a means. When I use someone like my children in my literary musings they are typically means and not ends. The posts are not about them but rather through them. Being used as a subject is prideful but as a delivery vehicle (or as a purpose) is more delicate and difficult. Do not confuse or overlook the two. The first is intimately easier, and the later takes a skill that I hope to one day hone so that everyone who reads this gets the connections.

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Well, The Frequently quip is a cheap plug at saying 6 June at the Bottletree Cafe even though my contribution won't be singing, and the Alice's Restaurant connection is admittedly a little out there.

Traffic and Marriage

Two days ago my normal drive home from work was extraordinarily atypical. The first hour was just like the first hour, but the last half hour took an hour and forty-five minutes. Traffic is an annoyance from time to time, but the day before yesterday was not only the worst but also one of the few (maybe four) times I've had to deal with bad traffic since our recent move last May. While it would be easy to just be mad about the stop and go traffic or be frustrated because I never saw a wreck, police car, or other reason for why traffic on both I-10 or the parallel and within sight Highway 90 across Mobile Bay was so congested I took it all in stride. This morning however, was a different matter. The drive this morning was uneventful. The moon was incredibly brilliant even after the sun rose. The traffic flowed nicely without too many of the morons in the stream. A tangent here would be to remind you that people driving slower than you are idiots and faster than you are morons and a common Southern driver trait is to make idiots of as many morons as possible. So it wasn't this morning's traffic that caused a difference. It was ruminating on yesterday's drive that made things interesting.

On the way home I spoke with a good friend about some issues he is going through, one of which is a severe test to his marriage. While he was far from the traffic mess I was in, it was his situation as well as two other friends in similar marital straits that got me thinking about the traffic.

From time to time in my life I've had a broken down vehicle. Whether stopped on the side of the road, in the middle of an intersection, malfunctioning lights, gauges, low on gas, any number of things that caused me to be a hinderance to traffic. As a result I try to be more understanding of someone who may be in a similar situation. Along that vein, this morning I began to think that there may well have been an individual stuck in the traffic that took three times as long to get where they were going and where they were going could have been a rendezvous for an extramarital affair.

I would happily sit for an extra 45 minutes in traffic to save one more marriage, would you?

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Perspective

Growing up in the South was wonderful for many reasons, one of which is the independent feeling that we gain from the freedom of being able to drive wherever we want to. As a result, many Southern metropolis areas have a driver to vehicle ratio of 0.95. For my part I got my license at the age of 15, the same age my oldest child is now and the thought of her driving is not one I enjoy though I am thankful that the age has been raised to 16. Over the course of my driving, I have spent time staring at many things. Sometimes it's the road in front of me, sometimes it's the mirror showing the road (or the policeman, or the poorly tied down load I'm hauling, or the car that's following me, etc.), sometimes it is something inside the vehicle that attracts all the attention. At least the first 5 years of my driving I was done in vehicles that had seen better days. Some had bad water pumps, bad batteries, bad alternators, bad starters, bad heaters, faulty gauges, flat tires, a shot muffler, and low oil pressure. A few vehicles only had one or two of those problems going on at the same time.

Given a choice, I prefer to drive vehicles with full instrumentation rather than just idiot lights. Always take an oil pressure gauge over a light that only comes on when the engine is about to blow. At least one vehicle I owned blew an engine because the idiot light telling me I had a temperature problem was not bright enough to be seen on a sunny, Southern spring day. The fact that the air conditioner didn't work, it was 90 degrees out, both windows were down, and I made it from Mobile to Biloxi in less than 25 minutes had nothing to do with the light being seen though they may have had everything to do with the water pump going out in the first place.

The drawback to full gauges is that when you know there is a problem you tend to focus on that gauge. I can't count the number of times I paid more attention to the temperature gauge than the road. Or the oil pressure gauge. Or the even now common fuel gauge.

What is it about our fuel tank that we count mileage when we get low. I can make it 10 more miles. There's a gas station that's 2 cents cheaper per gallon 15 miles down the road. I'll be late for church if I stop to fill up on the way. If I stop after church the Methodists will beat me to the restaurant. Rarely do we factor in the time, effort, or money it will cost us to run out of gas before we make it to where we're going. We do however, think that every traffic light takes too long to give us the green when we are within sight of that 2 cent cheaper station. 

Is this a reason why there are more people of an older age in church then there are younger? And I'm not referring to youth or babies so much as teen-aged and twenty year olds. Do we try harder to attend church, read the bible, act more Christ-like because our eyes have been taken off of the road and we're staring at our own Christianity meter?

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Veteran's Day

In the last two weeks I've found myself so busy that even my busy explanation needs explaining. Maybe I should just simplify since that would take less time to communicate. And yes, even though it would take me time to come up with a simpler explanation in the long run this would save time but I'm just ecstatic about saying that I'm so busy I don't know if I lost a horse or found a rope. Anyway, a week before Veteran's Day I passed some folks from the Disabled Vets of America passing out imitation forget-me-nots and as a disabled vet I stopped to talk to them. As I've mentioned before, I am proud to be a disabled vet but feel ashamed when someone thanks me for my service. I feel that we should be really thank those who deployed. I served between the two Gulf Wars and the one time my unit completely deployed they didn't take the Field Artillery battery (which yes means they didn't fully deploy). I thanked them for their service and mentioned that to them. The gentleman I spoke with corrected me for my attitude. He thanked me and said that my generation had a choice, his generation were told to go. As hard as I try to think outside the box and be unconventional, sometimes my thinking is still one-dimensional and flat.

Regardless, I hope you had a good Veteran's Day and even though it has now passed thank the next veteran you see. Let them know you appreciate their effort whether it was voluntary or involuntary.

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Smart

Over the course of the last 4 months driving a Smart Car I have learned a few important things. First of all, everyone is going to look at you. The friend who owned one and showed me the wisdom of owning one described it as "now you know how a hot chic feels" which is accurate. Insensitive perhaps, but accurate. Another friend theorized that since more often than not Smarts are driven by good-looking women the reason everyone looks is to see the driver. This is not accurate for a few reasons, one is of course that good-looking women look, too. The other is that almost every time I come out of a store to get back into my car there is someone looking at the driverless vehicle. A side note to this is that I feel like I need to keep the car washed and waxed. I've never seen a Corvette, a Porsche, or even a BMW that was covered in bugs and road tar. People have expectations of vehicles and drivers do, too.

You have to have thick skin to drive a Smart Car. Everyone has a joke for you. How many hamsters under the hood? What do you do when the wind blows? Oh, there's an engine? I thought you just poked your feet through the floor. Of course the best way is to joke back. Cutting them off by telling them the joke they've come up with serves two purposes. One it tells them you have heard it before (saving you the discomfort of hearing it again), and two it tells them that you, too, can understand the need to comment about something so different (and foreign) to what we all have.

One thing about joking back is that none of the jokers think it to funny when I tell them I "only" get about 40 miles to the gallon. I saw a Consumer Reports list which had 8 cars listed as getting better gas mileage. Those 8, as well as the next 2 below the Smart, had one thing in common--they were either all-electric or hybrid. There is no better mileage from a straight gas burning vehicle according to their list.

Being different always has its difficulties. You stick out, people make fun of you, but it has its advantages, too. Maybe my wallet isn't as fat as it could be or even fatter than most, but it's certainly fatter than it could be. Maybe the tank isn't as big as some, maybe some tanks are as big as the car, but it goes further on that tank than anyone else.

As usual, it's not about the car.

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Book Revivals

I suppose I have gotten used to waking early and driving a long way to work because for the last week I've been making a much shorter drive to attend a training class, which I have been very early for. This morning I took a short walk through the downtown area. The main purpose was to purchase some breakfast from Mostly Muffins, but the waking up of a city is an enjoyable experience. To hear the pressure washers on the sidewalk, delivery trucks unloading, City employees setting up bleachers for an event later in the day, and seeing the twilight-like glow of sunshine reflecting off canopies and trees are wonderful images of the downtown area.

Two doors from Mostly Muffins, which wasn't open yet, is Bienville Books. I love the alliteration, but it really reminds me that I have never figured out how Bienville could be D'Iberville's brother as much as it stirs my love of literature. The store has a setback door with windows to either side as do many of the downtown stores. In this one are many books about Halloween subjects, Frankenstein, Dracula, books on ghosts in Mobile, a t-shirt that says "I read dead people" and more. Interspersed with that were several science fiction titles, some old, some not. Robert Heinlein, Ursala K. LeGuin, Douglas Adams and more that stirred me as did the waking of Mobile.

I returned to peruse the window again, this time with muffin in hand, and contemplated the rejuvenated feeling I had for my own science fiction work in progress and reminded myself that just like a walk through the display of a book store can rekindle our love and desire for a topic, so can attending a church service.

Revivals don't always have to be on a grand scale with a gospel choir and a tent. Sometimes they are no less effective if they happen as a matter of every day events.

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Flossing

How often do our children see us floss? I'm betting it's rarely. Mostly I suspect it's rare because we don't floss as often as we should, but even brushing our teeth is something we probably do at a time that our children are doing something else. In my case, sleeping since I do it early in the morning. Even still, I don't floss as often as I could. Once I Asked my old dentist if he flossed. His response was that he always flossed--before his own dental appointments. Ever since I have rested easy knowing that I floss more than my dentist. But still not in front of my children very often.

Our children imitate what we do. Whether they want to admit it or not. They do the things we do, because we train them that way. Yet we still don't tend to show them our own oral hygiene practices. We do, however, get annoyed when the dentist tells us what the needed repairs will cost for braces, fillings, and other work.

Now, go back and substitute pray and read the bible for flossing or teeth brushing.

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Principles

Back when I first attended college and neglected to actually pay attention to my academic career I ran out of money and dropped out. My wife and I got married, and I joined the Army. I did this for 2 reasons. The first is that I had always wanted to be in the Corps of Engineers. Even longer than I wanted to be an engineer,  I wanted to be in the Corps. The second reason is that my whole life I had insulted Air Force personnel, it was just something that native Biloxians did. Even at the tender age of 20 I had to stand up to what I had been preaching albeit it a stupid thing to stand up for. As I was driving to work this morning I had the top down on my car. I do this each morning and afternoon until I get to the interstate. Even before I could drive I would see people who owned convertibles driving down the road with their tops up and thought that was dumb. What is the point of buying a convertible if you're just going to drive around like everyone without a removable top. I stand by this thought, albeit as dumb as the first. Perhaps dumber, since it was 53 degrees Fahrenheit this morning and I had on a jacket with the heater going.

I am not an apologist. I have read several apologetics, but for the most part when I do read them it only cements my decision, my faith, and my resolve that I am making the right choice in my steadfast belief in God. Several posts to this blog concerning evolution versus creationism are written with the preface that they are not intended to be read (or dissected) by someone who does not have similar beliefs in God in particular but Christianity in general. It is too easy to dive off into the apologetic arguments surrounding religion rather than the intended topic.

Do these two things have a common thread? Is my desire to be a believing and practicing Christian follower of God by non-desire to be an apologist ready to convince any agnostic or atheistic people in my presence as stupid as the desire to not join the service I had insulted because I followed those around me or the fact that I was cold simply to not be one of those idiots? In keeping from being an idiot, have I become a moron?

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Bad Navigation

Today is Columbus Day (Observed). We wanted to honor the day that Columbus "discovered" America, but we only want to do it on a day that's convenient for us. And saying that phrase is a convoluted twist of words. Columbus didn't first spot land, he wasn't looking for a new continent, it wasn't named America until years later, and as for discovery, he merely ran the mission that revealed it to the western culture in Europe of the mid-15th century. Perhaps that makes it the perfect holiday to celebrate today. Christopher Columbus wasn't his real name, it's the name we chose to give him. Cristoforo Colombo was born in Genoa, a city that does not predominantly speak English where we renamed Cristoforo. Not only did he not "discover" a new world, rather he revealed it to the travelling parts of the world, but he cheated the guy who first spotted it out of the reward. A guy not named Chris found a world that wasn't lost, and has that day celebrated on the second Monday of the month he discovered it. The only thing more confusing about that would be to factor in the Gregorian to Julian calendar shift of the 18th century that corrected for leap years.

Another October occurrence is The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, not that I watch The Simpsons, not that I watch the annual Treehouse of Horror, and not that the TOH always airs in October. Last night as I watched it, reminding myself of why I don't let my children watch The Simpsons, Ned Flanders had a line that struck me as funny. In typical fashion, it stuck me odd not in the manner in which it was intended. Ned was saying this snippet in a manner that is demeaning to Christianity, but he mentioned the Bible written in the language God originally intended. Said language being English.

There are those that believe that if you aren't reading the King James version of the Bible you aren't really reading the Bible, presumably Flanders is one. Focusing on just the words of the message often makes us miss the message. The context is important, the content of the message is important, but more important than either is the message itself. What the message stands for, what it means, what it refers to, the intent of the concept being relayed is the point of all communications.

Happy Columbus Day (from a guy who writes with a literary voice).

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Posted at 1012

Source for "facts" on Chris

Corinthians Trek

Recently I was reading II Corinthians and thinking that while both books are good, I liked the second one better than the first. Those that know me, however, know that that is way too easy a thought for me to have.

Some time back my preacher was explaining that I Corinthians was the second letter Paul wrote, and II Corinthians was the fourth. I used organic Google to recal this, then verified with him that was what he said several years ago. Presumably, we don't read the first or the third because they weren't memorable. For the record, I say that if they're lost, then they weren't memorable enough to save. In that regard, Corinthians is like Star Trek movies--only the even-numbered ones were worth anything.

Following with that argument: Star Trek II was a great movie with heavy overtones of Moby Dick; and Star Trek IV actually featured 2 whales. Star Trek IV (in my opinion) was twice as good. I must be a whale connosieur (see also allegorical novella of Jonah when subscribed to my blog posts). Further, it stands to reason since I like Star Trek IV better than Star Trek II and II Corinthians better than I Corinthians.

A side matter of note is that both Star Treks II and IV had fewer atheistic overtones that are prevalent in some of Gene Rodenberry's other movies such as Star Treks I, III, and V.

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Veritas

A wonderful thing about the truth is that it is the same regardless of how it is approached. Whether from the left, the right, the front, or behind, the end conclusion--the truth--is always the same. Most of my posts approach Providence from the worldly perspective but last week I had a thought that came from the other direction. No matter what we do, God loves us. He knows have sinned. He knows we will sin. He knows we are sinning. He knows we take his name in vain and sometimes even use it with the wrong four letter words. He knows we put him behind other things (like football) at times, He knows when we skimp on our giving. But none of it makes a difference to Him. He still loves us.

As children we find our parents to be unfair and oppressive. When are certain that when we have our own life, and especially our own children, that we won't be like they were to us. The reality of it is that we try to ignore our own parents when as grandparents they laugh at us because our kids are the same as we are. We love our children no matter how hard we discipline them. No matter what they did. No matter what they are going to do. No matter what they are doing right now. Even if our blood boils with anger or we lash out yelling or taking away toys (like cellphones). Regardless, we still love them more than our own lives.

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Recycled

Our new town has a recycling program. In theory it's great because it eliminates garbage from the waste stream. In practice, it stinks. Is it because I found myself washing out an old peanut butter jar so it can be recycled that I don't like it? Yes Maybe. But for a guy who's only recycling practice was saving cans in Boy Scouts to raise money for camp (or the one time I made enough to buy not one but two books on the War of Northern Aggression), and my (now ended) practice of dumping at least 1 quart of oil straight into the ground each Earth Day, I've never really been a fan. I took Calculus IV four times. It's a long story (aren't they all with me?). The first time I was fascinated by the subject. The main premise of Calculus I is that on a small enough scale, a curved line is flat. In Cal IV it is that locally a sphere is a plane. Not a dimensional shift, but a dimensional addition that makes it fascinating to watch. The point of Calculus IV is not to watch it being done, or to see it as a stepping stone to Differential Equations, both of which are prerequisites to an engineering degree. It is neat to watch, and it is a stepping stone to DE and a Degree, but that is not the point.

In my last church I had a hard time finding a Sunday School class to fit into. The one I kept trying, and kept getting thrust back into when the class I really fit into disbanded, recycled its lessons. Month in and month out the bottom line was that things would work great if we just acted the way we were supposed to. Well, crap or get off the pot. For over 30 years I prayed that God would hurry up and give me patience. I stopped at 3 decades because He did. He gave me patience because I got tired of recycling the feel good lessons and put them to use.

Some things just aren't meant to be recycled. For everything else, clean out the peanut butter jars.

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Abbreviate

Why is the word abbreviation so long? There is also no abbreviation for abbreviation. To abbreviate is to make something shorter, and shorter, especially in this age of instant gratification, is (or seems to be) better. So often we try to make things better, but only seem to make them longer. Consider the internet. URLs are typically abbreviated www.something.whatever so often that my computer wants to make that a hyperlink. The letter W is the only non-monosyllabic letter in the English language. In fact, it is a tri-syllabic letter. The letters www stand for World Wide Web, three monosyllabic words. This means that we abbreviate 3 syllables with 9 syllables. Plus it's wordier, yet no one seems to care or want to correct it. Even if we say triple W we have nearly doubled the length, and time it takes to say, the original word.

Someone by the name of Lewis Mumford who lived from 1895-1990 once said that "Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity." I don't know who Lewis was, but as a Traffic Engineer (even though I haven't worked in traffic since I left my last private consulting firm I still consider myself a traffic guy) I can relate to him. So often we think that the solution to our problem is simply to make more room for our problem. The only thing this does is make our problem bigger and more difficult to handle.

This concept is a little more difficult to relate to the overarching theme of my blog, but we do at times make Christianity harder than it should be. Jesus never said a sinner's prayer with anyone. Not the woman at the well, not Zacheus, not even Judas Iscariot. This isn't a bad thing though, because, like us, Jesus made things more difficult, too. By speaking in parables, he confused his disciples. They were constantly asking him what he meant. In talking to the crowds he spoke in anecdotes, but he explained to those that were with him all the time. If anyone should "get" him, you would think it would be those that traveled with him. Yet they didn't, and the masses did.

Maybe oversimplifying isn't all it's cracked up to be.

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Under the Cherry Moon

While in San Diego I had the joy of being given a rental car that was a convertible. I had driven convertibles before, but only for a short drive, never on a regular basis. This was my first trip to San Diego, a city I had never heard anything bad about, and after seeing it the only negative thing I can say for it is that it's in California (take that in any way you think I intend it). After about 5 days I realized that the weather was similar to the Puget Sound weather without the rain. Many days I cruised with the top down and the heater on full blast. I had begun to experience life with the top down and did not want to go back to the claustrophobia that is an enclosed vehicle. In addition to becoming accustomed to taking the top down I began talking with someone who had a Smart Car. Like most our conversation about his car began with a "Oh, you drive a coffin can!" comment. To which he patiently replied, "Yes, but..." Matt began describing the car, its features, its engineering, its comfort, and its advantages. Then, we went for a ride.

He first saw the vehicles in Europe and waited until they came to the US. When they did he snatched up one of the first and has since put over 140,000 miles on it. His one way commute to work is nearly as long as mine, but he has put many, many miles on it crossing the country alone and with one of his teenaged sons. It was an incredible learning experience, and by the end or our training session I pulled up the website and "built" a car. Another friend next to us did the same with a Volkswagen diesel--his response to "what I should get" instead. My fully loaded convertible Smart ended up being just under $20k, Jeremy's vaunted VW was neither loaded nor striped but hit the wallet at $38k. As I flew back home I had an idea.

As an engineer, I love numbers. It didn't take long to work up the numbers and discover that the car note and gas costs would be less than what I pay just for gas in my 99 F-150. Which, oh by the way, needs a repair from time to time. I began searching for a car, and found one, the right one for me.

One disadvantage of the vehicle is that you become an unofficial spokesperson for the company. If you buy one, you'll be selling them. It is an incredibly fun vehicle. Responsive, turns on a quarter, stops on a dime, and you can put the top up or down while still driving down the road.

Once we experience life unleashed, we don't want to go back.

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The title is a reference to a Prince album which has a song with a lyric "I need another lover, like I need a hole in my head." My driveway now looks like a car lot with 4 vehicles. I needed another car like I needed a hole in my head.

Coal Into Newcastle

As I type this post I have brought coal into Newcastle. I came to the library to wait on a phone call for about an hour. I decided I'd try to catch up on a few things (because I do not have anything resembling down time) like some of my reading. I haven't finished On Writing, and have added to my "I'm going to carry this around until I read it" list And Another Thing, the sixth book of the trilogy by Douglas Adams written by Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame). Eoin has been channeling Douglas so far as I've read (about 10 pages) so it is enjoyable. However, the book I've decided to read while waiting is Jeff Goins's You Are A Writer.

This gives me the added odd feature of bringing not only books into the library but an eBook into the library. Who can resist the irony there. With so many predicting the eBook industry bringing an end to the traditional print book world I couldn't resist.

Jeff's eBook was just released (by the time I post this blog) last week. It is a wonderfully easy read that I'll be putting a complete review of soon. It also has been an Amazon Bestseller so far, too.

Some people bring coal into Newcastle week after week. My former church has this happen as an example. Many on-fire Christians come in for Sunday School, services, or both every week (or twice a week, or even three times a week) to get re-charged. Others come in and leave with the same coal-free existence they had. The fire can spread from one piece to another, yet so often fails to do so. Those who bring in coal every week take more home than they came with. Some of us coal-carriers hope that more people walk out with coal than those that walked in.

The wonderful thing about the church's coal is that it doesn't matter how much we take out, there's always enough to go around and there's always more.

And another thing, Dr. T never got mad at me when I tried to hit other people in the church with His coal.

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PS I took more coal out of the library, too. I checked out one of CS Lewis's greatest books The Great Divorce because I need a bolster to my faith since my self-imposed exile from church.

Still Trying

A few days ago I read one of my favorite blogs by the author of Dilbert. While he often says things that some would find surprising to come from a comic, that is merely one of the reasons I follow him. In this post the thing he said that most stood out to me was: "I prefer to divide the world into two groups: People who are trying, and people who aren't." It would seem easy to identify people who aren't trying on the poor side of the scale. Or at least one would assume. Those that come to mind would be the illiterate, dropouts, and perennial welfare/food stamp recipients. That would be wrong to automatically classify them all as people who aren't trying, but there are people from that group in those groups.

Assuming that all who aren't trying are on the disadvantaged side could not be more wrong. Some disadvantaged try the hardest. And some of the most privileged try the least. Talent doesn't define it, ability doesn't define it, money doesn't define it, the only thing that defines those who try are the fact that they try. They fall down seven times and stand up eight. The world gives them lemons and they make lemonade, lemon squares, and cherry Coke just to make the world wonder how they did it.

It also isn't right to assume that just because you said a sinner's prayer or walked the nave of a church that you're good, either. Showing up to church every time the doors open won't do it either. You can still divide the people into those who are trying and those who aren't. Doing so might just surprise you from time to time, too.

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My mom pointed out that the link to download my novella wasn't working right. This is for subscribers, either email or RSS Feed. I think I fixed it, and would have fixed it sooner if I had known I needed to. If you tried before, try again. If it still doesn't work, drop me an email and let me know. Then, when you read it, post a comment and tell me what you think.

Faithful Metaphors

Literary writers use metaphors. It's not a secret. What the metaphor is, what it means, and how it was intended sometimes is. More often than not it is explained by either the story (if it's a good metaphor) or intense overanalyzation. My good friend from Cincinnati calls it mental fornication. Sometimes the metaphor is the basis for the story. Sometimes the story was started and the metaphor added in a fit of epiphany or as the Muse directs if you prefer. Sometimes the metaphor as intended becomes more, more appropriate, more than desired. And sometimes it shows you what you didn't want to admit.

There were issues boiling in and around my family's church attendance, desire, and committment. It was boiling over when my wife informed me that we would prove my dad wrong and make our youngest a middle child. Nothing says someone neglected to disconnect the plumbing like a 12 year gap between kids.

Names have always been a big part of our 3 kids. Obviously, anyone who loves words and worries about words (including mental fornication about which to use) would take great care to choose words wisely. Children names were no exception. Our first child was named after her maternal grandmother. For a middle name (the one I could choose) I selected her mother's middle name before she changed her middle name to her maiden name. It was 6 years before the one-time opportunity appeared. The primary was to honor my wife, but when my daughter announced that she was Uh Byrd (chosing the alternate pronunciation of A) it was all worth it.

My second child was 27 hours old before we settled on a name. The name I selected ended up being first because it sounded better that way, but we call her by her middle name. I chose my paternal grandmother's name and she has inherited Mama Byrd's musical ability (see also any post here by The Frequently).

Little Doodlebug was another matter. I pushed hard for Scarlet Grace, that is a powerful name indicative of so much. In fact, I added a major role in my work in progress for Scarlet Grace to play. It is so critical I have no idea how I was writing it without her, but I digress. Faith was selected for my youngest because I realized that my family was having a faith issue and hoped that subconsciously all of our faith would grow as all of ours Faith grew.

She is, it is, and the metaphor became deeper then I first imagined. Every time we brought Faith to the nursery she got some illness or sickness. None of them were bad, but our Faith was being affected by going where we were. It is harsh to say, but our faith was being affected by going where we were.

After posting my recent, somewhat vague post about Jello I passed along to one person the symbolism of the post. Neither of my other readers commented to me to explain that they caught what I meant. That is the problem of literary writing, some may get all, all may get some, some will get none, none will get some. I don't apologize because I have to write. Just because we don't fit doesn't mean others won't or that the Jello is tainted. I loved our church, I love many of the folks in it, but it was time for the Byrd Pineapple to become dislodged. 

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How Do You Come Across

 An unfortunate problem I have passed on to my offspring is that of being difficult to read. I suppose it is a uniqueness, just like everyone else's uniqueness that we appear to be so easy to read and yet are read incorrectly. The worst part is that we are so easy to read because there are no subtle signals, it's just out there. I will illustrate with an anecdote from several years ago. I switched my cell phone provider to Nextel because everyone I talked with had the du-doop connection. Eventually they all migrated to providers that were less proud of their service and I ended up with the incredible iPhone with less than lackluster service I have now. Before all that happened though, Nextel was bought out by Sprint.

Sprint was well-known for the pin drop commercials in the early to mid 90s, and their call quality was that good. A few months after I started with Nextel I received a call advertising a "hybrid" phone that had Nextel for the du-doop and Sprint for the phone calls. This gave me the odd ability to du-doop in some places I had no cell phone coverage and call people in places where I had no du-doop coverage. With free incoming minutes, it also allowed me to forward my work cell phone to my personal cell phone number. This wouldn't seem to be beneficial until you realize that when it went to voicemail callers heard my personal number. If they didn't know me well enough to know I did that, they thought they called the wrong number and hung up without leaving a message--so I didn't have to call back.

About the same number of months later, Sprint began an every other month call asking me how I liked the service. Now, the unspoken question they really were asking was if I wanted to upgrade my phone (which of course would extend my contract with them). When my contract ran out they began calling every month. Every time they called until I got rid of the service (and the month after when they still called) I told them I had a complaint and paused. That got their attention. Then I told them my complaint. The quality of the phone calls was so good that I couldn't tell when the phone dropped the call. The silence in the conversation matched the sound of simply holding the phone to your ear.

How would you take that? Compliment? Complaint? Me being me?

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